Are we Really Past Truth? A Historian’s Perspective

2021 ◽  
Vol 43 (2) ◽  
pp. 265-283
Author(s):  
Sophia Rosenfeld
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Public Life ◽  
The Enlightenment ◽  
Late Eighteenth Century ◽  
Late Eighteenth

Abstract The prevalence of the term post-truth suggests that we have, in the last few years, moved from being members of societies dedicated to truth to being members of ones that cannot agree on truth’s parameters and, even worse, have given up trying. But is this really what has happened? The author argues that, under the sway of the Enlightenment, truth has actually been unstable and a source of contention in public life ever since the founding moment for modern democracies in the late eighteenth century; the ‘post’ in ‘post-truth’ elides this complex history even as it accurately describes some of the conditions of our moment. What that means, though, is that rather than attempt to turn the clock back to past models and practices for restoring the reign of truth, we should be looking for new, post-Enlightenment paradigms for how to define and locate truth in the context of democracy, as well as new mechanisms for making this possible.

THE “HARD FORM” OF SCULPTURE: MARBLE, MATTER AND SPIRIT IN EUROPEAN SCULPTURE FROM THE ENLIGHTENMENT THROUGH ROMANTICISM

2008 ◽  
Vol 5 (3) ◽  
pp. 455-486 ◽  
Author(s):  
LINDA WALSH
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Theory And Practice ◽  
Early Nineteenth Century ◽  
External Appearance ◽  
The Enlightenment ◽  
Late Eighteenth Century ◽  
Late Eighteenth ◽  
Familiar World ◽  
A Site ◽  
Aesthetic Values

The apparently distinct aesthetic values of naturalism (a fidelity to external appearance) and neoclassicism (with its focus on idealization and intangible essence) came together in creative tension and fusion in much late eighteenth-century and early nineteenth-century sculptural theory and practice. The hybrid styles that resulted suited the requirements of the European sculpture-buying public. Both aesthetics, however, created difficulties for the German Idealists who represented a particularly uncompromising strain of Romantic theory. In their view, naturalism was too closely bound to the observable, familiar world, while neoclassicism was too wedded to notions of clearly defined forms. This article explores sculptural practice and theory at this time as a site of complex debates around the medium's potential for specific concrete representation in a context of competing Romantic visions (ethereal, social and commercial) of modernity.

Book Ownership in Late Eighteenth-Century Scotland: a Local Case Study of Dumfriesshire Inventories

2012 ◽  
Vol 91 (2) ◽  
pp. 265-286 ◽  
Author(s):  
Vivienne Dunstan
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Scottish Enlightenment ◽  
The Enlightenment ◽  
Late Eighteenth Century ◽  
Print Material ◽  
Local Case ◽  
Late Eighteenth ◽  
Different Types ◽  
Scholarly Attention

Late eighteenth-century Scotland saw a period of growth in the availability of print material set against the backdrop of the Scottish Enlightenment. Yet despite much scholarly attention having been paid to the Enlightenment and an increasing interest in the books people were reading, little attention has been paid to the books that would have been found in individual Scottish houses and what they reveal about Scottish mindsets in these years. This paper addresses this topic, using a local case study of after-death inventories of personal possessions. These rich records reveal the size of household libraries, the varieties of books they contained, variation by occupation and social class, and the extent to which their owners engaged with and were influenced by debates and ideas of the time. In addition, the evidence allows us to consider the uses to which different types of books were put, examine differences between urban and provincial Scotland, and consider how and where people bought their books.

Touching Books: Diderot, Novalis,and the Encyclopedia of the Future

2011 ◽  
Vol 114 (1) ◽  
pp. 65-102 ◽  
Author(s):  
Chad Wellmon
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
The Enlightenment ◽  
Late Eighteenth Century ◽  
Late Eighteenth ◽  
The Future

This article considers the reinvention of the Enlightenment encyclopedic tradition in a late eighteenth-century Germany overwhelmed by the proliferation of print. In particular, it traces a shift in the very metaphors of encyclopedic knowledge from those of vision that characterized Diderot and D'Alembert's Encyclopédie to those of touch that characterized the German poet Novalis's Allgemeine Brouillon.

Amores perritos: Puppies, Laughter and Popular Catholicism in Bourbon Mexico City

2014 ◽  
Vol 46 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-28 ◽  
Author(s):  
FRANK ‘TREY’ PROCTOR
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Early Modern ◽  
Mexico City ◽  
Colonial Mexico ◽  
The Enlightenment ◽  
Late Eighteenth Century ◽  
Late Eighteenth ◽  
The Face ◽  
Bourbon Reforms ◽  
Popular Classes

AbstractIn late eighteenth-century Mexico City, Spanish colonials, particularly members of the urban middle and popular classes, performed a number of weddings and baptisms on puppies (which were wearing clothes or bejewelled collars) in the context of fandangos or dance parties. These ceremonies were not radical challenges to orthodoxy or conservative reactions in the face of significant economic, political, religious and cultural Bourbon reforms emanating from Spain. Employing Inquisitorial investigations of these ceremonies, this article explores the rise of pet keeping, the meanings of early modern laughter and the implications of the cultural and religious components of the Enlightenment-inspired Bourbon reforms in late colonial Mexico.

scholarly journals Enlightenment or Counter-Enlightenment in Russia? Enlightenment or Counter-Enlightenment in Russia? Century

2019 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
pp. 1089-1120
Author(s):  
Natalie Bayer
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
The Enlightenment ◽  
Late Eighteenth Century ◽  
Late Eighteenth ◽  
The Mind

The article explores the themes of Enlightenment and Counter-Enlightenment through the lens of Freemasonry, and, more specifically, Freemasons in Russia who wrote history. It tests the approaches of Masonic history writers against Berlin’s definitions of the Enlightenment and Counter-Enlightenment. Whilst a definitive break between the Enlightenment and Counter-Enlightenment seems attractive, the article advances a more nuanced picture of the plurality of religious and secular discourse in Russia. Instead of opposing the Enlightenment, many late eighteenth-century Masonic writers of history provided their own, alternative interpretative models of history as a way out of the perceived crisis between the mind and the soul.

The Context

2019 ◽  
pp. 15-22
Author(s):  
Steven J. Osterlind
Keyword(s):  
Probability Theory ◽  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Industrial Revolution ◽  
Historical Context ◽  
Probability Estimation ◽  
The Enlightenment ◽  
Late Eighteenth Century ◽  
Late Eighteenth ◽  
In The Beginning

This chapter introduces the historical context that gives meaning to the contemporaneous developments in probability theory. It shows how one can only realize the true meaning of quantification by realizing how history set the context for the great number of mathematical developments. The period is defined as the “long century,” starting with the rise of the Enlightenment and lasting well into the age of the Industrial Revolution: roughly 1790 to 1920. Most of this relatively short chapter describes the main historical events that took place during the late-eighteenth century, throughout the nineteenth century, and in the beginning of the twentieth century. This chapter sets the stage for the rest of the book, in which those who invented probability theory and developed the methods of probability estimation will be examined within their historical context.

Absolutism

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anthony Pagden
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Civil Wars ◽  
Roman Law ◽  
Wars Of Religion ◽  
The Enlightenment ◽  
Late Eighteenth Century ◽  
Form Of Government ◽  
Late Eighteenth ◽  
China And Japan ◽  
Legal Constraints

The term ‘absolutism’ describes a form of government in which the authority of the ruler is subject to no theoretical or legal constraints. In the language of Roman law – which played a central role in all theories of absolutism – the ruler was legibus solutus, or ‘unfettered legislator’. Absolutism is generally, although not exclusively, used to describe the European monarchies, and in particular those of France, Spain, Russia and Prussia, between the middle of the sixteenth century and the end of the eighteenth. But some form of absolutism existed in nearly every European state until the late eighteenth century. There have also been recognizable forms of absolute rule in both China and Japan. As a theory absolutism emerged in Europe, and in particular in France, in the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries, in response to the long Civil Wars between the Crown and the nobility known as the Wars of Religion. In the late eighteenth century, as the reform movement associated with the Enlightenment began to influence most European rulers, a form of so-called ‘enlightened absolutism’ (or sometimes ‘enlightened despotism’) emerged. In this the absolute authority of the ruler was directed not towards enhancing the power of the state, but was employed instead for advancing the welfare of his subjects.

Mr. von Mohl’s Term of Art

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jens Meierhenrich
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Nazi Germany ◽  
Legal Development ◽  
Modern Germany ◽  
The Enlightenment ◽  
Late Eighteenth Century ◽  
Long Run ◽  
Late Eighteenth ◽  
History Of

The German idea of the Rechtsstaat has revolutionary origins. Robert von Mohl crafted it under the influence of the Enlightenment. This chapter tells a brief history of the idea of the Rechtsstaat in Germany. It traces the evolution of the term from its emergence in the late eighteenth century until 1933. Its intellectual trajectory raises questions about the long-run consequences of legal development in modern Germany. It sets the stage for the analysis in the next chapter of the term’s manipulation by legal theorists in Nazi Germany.

Slavery, Ideology, and Institutional Change: the Impact of the Enlightenment on Slavery in Late Eighteenth-Century Maranhão

1979 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-17 ◽  
Author(s):  
Colin M. Maclachlan
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Institutional Change ◽  
Social Consequences ◽  
The Enlightenment ◽  
Late Eighteenth Century ◽  
The Social ◽  
Late Eighteenth ◽  
The Impact

Every institution rests upon a philosophical base that both supports it and lends a certain character to its functions. As the philosophical support changes, one can expect institutional change to follow. Responding to the philosophical environment, an institution may be modified or, if support is withdrawn, fade into history. Institutions, however, do not react in a uniform fashion. The degree of change depends on the social consequences, as well as upon the possibility of achieving reform without an unacceptable amount of disorder.

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